Civ V - Icrontic FFA 002 [complete]

Same settings as the first game: Terra map, Classical Start. The big difference will be, of course, that now we have a bunch of expansion content.

Everyone must have all DLC.

Post in this thread to indicate interest, and I'll invite you to the game on GMR. I've already invited everyone who closed out the last game. Some of these invites are not already Icrontic members. Hopefully, if they join the game, they'll also join Icrontic, but I'm not requiring it.

Use this thread for discussion, in or out of character. Keep the turn-nagging to a minimum.

A list of players and their empire names will be posted here once we start, so that we can keep track in case someone's steam name differs from their Icrontic name.

@CB I only declared war to get my city state back that you stole from me early game. I made sur to wait until our research agreement completed and our last trade expired. If you want to keep going after I liberate them it's up to you otherwise we can peace when I'm done.

@PirateNinja - You can spin it however you want but all I did was reject your offer of 2 aluminum per turn in exchange for 700 gold I knew would be lost as soon as you declared war on Joe, since he and I have a defensive pact. I knew I'd be giving you 700 gold in exchange for only a few turns of aluminum, so I rejected the offer.

But, you know, you can consider that a backstab if it helps you justify declaring war on an innocent bystander.

Haha, well firstly I didn't know you had a defensive pact and that's a silly thing to have with Joe knowing full well what was going to happen to him. Also, I have been trying to offer you aluminum for about 5 turns. Also, if you peace me I'll put the offer back on the table. Also, I offered you 2 aluminum for your two cities with over 20 combined river tiles which would give you an insane baseline production bonus for less gold than it would cost you to buy a single factory. I never would have even offered it to you if you hadn't agreed to stop backing Joe. Which by the way, spies report you gifting units to him. Also, Joe is not an innocent bystander unless you meant yourself, and I never declared war on you.

We have had plenty of good fights and the trash talk over steam chat/forums has always been fun. We have fought each other tons of times and we have allied up against the dreaded Basil, and that was fun even though I lost terribly in a war that took and entire IRL year to get anywhere (WOS). It was still fun, even though I knew I would lose the whole time.

There are plenty of no war games going on, or a handful at least and we can do more. The reason for war is different each and every game, and frankly without it GMR games are going to take years to complete. More years than they already do. There are too many checks and balances in this game to finish in a reasonable amount of time without war to separate winners and losers. For example, II and Twin Flames 3 are likely to go on forever and ever. I mean my kid(s?) will be in school by time we get through those games. Alternatively, you can play the coop games we do so at least we war together.

Or another option is to change your play style. While there are occasional victimless wars in Civ, I hope you can see how your aggressive play style is why you are frequently at war. That's not to mention how absolutely fine you are with war as long as you are winning or think you have an edge.

No need to quit civ multiplayer, unless it seriously isn't fun for you which would be understandable. All games get repetitive, but you can change it up if you want.

Agreed, but my play style is largely a product of the fact that if I don't behave aggressively then I'm going to get stomped early. Even in games that I'm winning I've gotten bored of always war. The beauty of Civ is the multiple ways to win, but unless peace is forced I've yet to play a multiplayer game that hasn't ended in domination victory.

FFA001 didn't end in domination. All the dickbots and ghandi games had war as a rule and shouldn't count. I don't know if you still play Wide Open Spaces, but I have serious doubts that game will be won by domination as the map is simply too big for it and a space victory will come first (or a culture victory would have if @Basil hadn't dicked so hard).

@PirateNinja said:
Haha, well firstly I didn't know you had a defensive pact and that's a silly thing to have with Joe knowing full well what was going to happen to him. Also, I have been trying to offer you aluminum for about 5 turns. Also, if you peace me I'll put the offer back on the table. Also, I offered you 2 aluminum for your two cities with over 20 combined river tiles which would give you an insane baseline production bonus for less gold than it would cost you to buy a single factory. I never would have even offered it to you if you hadn't agreed to stop backing Joe. Which by the way, spies report you gifting units to him. Also, Joe is not an innocent bystander unless you meant yourself, and I never declared war on you.

SO THERE.

Right, but 5 turns isn't long enough to recoup the 700 gold, and I knew you'd declare war on him if I couldn't convince him to negotiate peace.

I had a defensive pact with Joe for the same reason that NATO exists IRL, it's supposed to be a deterrent to declaring war on any of the members, because you know you're getting more than you bargained for.

Yeah I gifted units to Joe so that he didn't lose his capital before I convinced him to negotiate peace with Garg. I've been trying to convince him for two weeks. Once I convinced him, the offer was rejected.

Hey Joe, you really need to learn how to stop a war before you get crushed, even if the conditions aren't perfect for you.

Hey Dan, you really need to learn how to stop declaring war on people for weak justifications such as "diplomacy panel says you rejected my offer" or "you played the way your civ is designed so I'm going to free that city state that willingly joined your empire."

Hey CB, I guess you and me need to learn how to be better at war, because these guys probably aren't gonna stop.

@CrazyJoe said:
I don't even care any more. I'm about done with Civ V multiplayer. It always ends in war and that is getting boring in each and every game.

Although I still care to play, it does feel like it's getting stale, except for the Dickbots games which are always fun. We seem to follow the same patterns every time: Joe declares a war that starts out promising for him, but ends poorly because he under-committed forces and gets overwhelmed. CB and I try to develop our Civs in non-militaristic ways, then get stomped when Dan decides to declare war on us using Kim Jong-un style diplomacy (actually it's probably more Putin-esque since Kim doesn't actually have a viable military force behind his bluster). Dan wins in military victory. I guess what makes Dickbots fun for me is that they break that pattern. Even though there's war, the Dickbots games play out in a different pattern that I find more interesting.'

//edit: @Ryder you might want to get a second helping of that popcorn.

O RLY?!
Rebuttal points
1. You can't compare me to North Korea, they only talk and never deliver
2. I get it now, the way my post was formatted it was as if I was listing three reasons to go to war. That's my fault for not considering the post could be read that way. I never declared war on you Rob. We can make peace right now. As I already stated, I had no idea you were still doing defensive pacts with Joe. I am not going to keep warring. I'll be in this about 10 turns top and then I'm out. Just like the first war this game. I exist to slow Joe down a bit and then see myself out.
3. You, Rob, have been my friend since the beginning of this game and the only mean thing I ever did was spread my religion to your city last turn. We have had good trades and I've shared info with you.
4. Once you use aluminum to build dams, and if you lose the resource, you still keep the building and the production bonus. Just like coal and factories. If you want the aluminum for 25 turns so you have a ton of time to build your dams, make peace with me and you can have it next turn. If you need more time to develop the tech let me know and I'll give you the same offer in the future if you want it. I'm not a shit and if you think 700 is too high (which is kind of nuts) then make a counter offer.
5. @CB did play the way his Civ was designed by taking my city state ally BUT I am Siam and my primary benefit is my city state Allies. There are a lot of CSs CB could have choosen from early game and he sent his merchant about as far away as possible to snipe the CS that I allied with early game. There had to be at least a bit of, hey Dan may not like this that crossed his mind. And like I said, I have zero interest in war with CB I just want my ally back so I can control congress. I finally got enough military together to take my CS ally back because I'm also playing the way my civ is designed, but I've spent the last few hundred turns building wonders and buildings just like you and CB. I only blew up militarily suddenly because I rushed foreign legion via cultural policy.
6. I won FFA001 with science after spending the entire first half of the game with shit demographic ranks and a handful of mediocre cities. I ended up fighting you in what seemed an absolutely necessary power grab to deal with the MASSIVE Joe empire that was encroaching upon me KNOWING that the CB/Joe/Rob meta alliance would exist and I would get fucked with you as my neighbor once Joe finished China. There was nothing between Joe and I in FFA001 until late game. I never did a domination victory. I beat Joe in a very narrow space race and I wouldn't have if you were alive next to me.
7. Now let's look at this game. I declared war on Joe once and razed some tiles of his then quit. I just helped Garg a little bit. Joe did what he always does, this is true. He overexpanded by raping AI but oddly stopped short of killing you and CB. Why is that? CB has a beautiful capital with no army yet Joe didn't go one more city over and kill it? Then it would have been easy to corner you and take half the world. Anyway, Joe decides it would be funny to build up the biggest empire in the game and at the same time shamelessly steal land from Gargoyle instead of doing what makes sense which would have been killing you and CB. Gargoyle and I look at the game, where I have 2 shitty desolate cities ranked 6 in demographics in everything, and say we need to team up to slow Joe down otherwise he is just going to end this game (for us) quick. The war starts, Joe loses stuff and has a hard time because he is over extended and cocky and didn't know you could connect cities via harbor. I take my leave and do a massive tech and culture build up, which is how I am going to win if you guys don't all start fighting me together soon. I'm not going to dominate anyone. I had the second smallest military in the game until 20 turns ago. Now I jump back in to help deliver a KO to Joe because you know Joe will seek revenge later if we don't and suddenly I'm ole Kim? I'm the mad north korean leader? You have Joe and I seriously confused but I still dig your view on it all.
8. I have 2 cities and I will never have more than 2 cities. I'm not going to win by domination. I'm not going to fight Rob or CB in this game except this one moment where I take my CS ally back.
9. Soon this game will take a turn and all of you will team up against me so I don't win by science. It's going to be a far more interesting game than you think, but you already mentally decided I'm going to military dominate everyone which is a hell of a compliment but I will sadly have to disappoint you.

(out of game persona)
I didn't realize your earlier post wasn't a declaration of war on everyone. I must have misinterpreted. Since you actually deliver on your war promises, I've dub you Putin instead of Kim.

I didn't actually keep up on the win conditions in FFA001 after my dreams of a peaceful existence were crushed.

I'm pretty sure Joe didn't attack me in the early game of 002 due to the profitable trades and tech whatchamawhosits I was offering him in order to save my own skin. Also, raping AI is pretty easy compared to the long and drawn out struggles of battling a real human opponent.

Just to make it clear, my first post above was in-game persona, and the second was out.

If this isn't the same old stale metagame re-hashed, I'm all for continuing the real FFA. LET'S DO THIS.

(in game persona)
Since the Dutch have ignored my consistent advice to stop the war, I will consider that defensive pact invalid, and thus the Babylonians and the Siamese can reestablish our long history of peace, under the provision that you can can reach peaceful terms with Venice. My defensive pact with that civilization was valid as Venice has never done anything to harm civilized relations with Babylon.

At this time, it would not be in my favor to accept your Aluminum trade, as I have secured a source within my territory. I thank you for your offer.

(out of game)
If I were Joe in 002 I would have kept going past the AI and taken CB, and you after that. Never would have messed with Garg because Garg can be vicious (recall my immediate and frantic destruction in Aloha Oh) and there was no point. Garg in 002 is this sort of barren military compound where as you and CB have beautiful cities with riches and wonders. I just couldn't believe that great general move, but slaughtering the AI so quickly doubly painted Joe as the contender to win and the target for war. All that happened was I got lucky and started a million miles away from Joe. Setting up Garg as my ally gave me a massive buffer I have been able to focus on culture/science/diplomacy while lightly supporting the war efforts. There was no meta, it was a distraction to dull Garg and Joe's development while allowing me to completely avoid war. After a hundred+ turns of that power has moved over to me, and believe me if you guys are willing the pendulum will swing back but ironically you guys need to unite for that to happen. Joe continues to be the best thing that has ever happened to me in this game as he acts like a massive curtain to hide my own ambitions.

(in game)
Siam is a peaceful and progressive nation that wishes to unite the world by a strong central religion, research agreements, and peaceful progression of all nations that agree to our policies. We only wish to liberate the city state, our first ally and neighbor, from Venice upon which we shall gracefully offer peace to Venice and even offer some the beloved gold in good faith. At that point we welcome all trades from Venice and Babylon. Our conflict with the Dutch will come to an end when it is clear he no longer faces an immediate threat to the world. Not long ago the Siamese empire was scouted by a Venetian Lancer and a Dutch Sea Beggar as the Dutch assessed Siam's attempt to end the world's wars. The Dutch made it clear they had no intention of ending the war, likely based on this scouting of my then undefended territory. However, Putin Ramkhamhaeng realized he could not make diplomatic peace and built a massive army and navy. Now, only after wasting tons of resources, we are offered peace. No, we will plunder our money back to make up for this waste of military and hurt the Dutch until they can no longer play war games with the world as if it were just some sort of ... game. We will remove the Venetian implanted spying state on our borders and liberate it to it's previous standing. Then, we will unite the world with out glorious hot food, peaceful religion that generates prosperity and science, and the world's apparent will for peace and development which will be tested as we force you to all wear our blue jeans.

I didn't start the war with Garg. I did build one citadel to take a sugar resource for one of my cities. If that was the impetus for war though I guess I did antagonize him into it, but taking one luxury resource is a fairly weak reason for it I think, but understandable. I attacked Russia initially take one city that had some marshes around it for me to use as Polders. Once that caused Colgere to quit the game I kept going, otherwise I would have been fine stopping once I got the Marsh City.

I didn't continue on to take out CB or Rob because Garg had already declared war with me by that point. Plus I didn't want to take out either because spies were helping me with tech in Rob's cities and CB was trading alot with my newly conquered Russian cities. Even if I had wanted to do such things Garg already had DoW'd war on me. I had discussions with him for quite some time asking if he wanted to stop the war and work together since the war was just hurting both our chances of any victory other than domination (even at Epic this summer) but we never came to an agreement. I've seen the writing on the wall that you were in great position to win the game for months now.

Anyways I think peace is tactical suicide on my part, but as I said I'm getting bored of Perpetual War (Much the same way you and Basil did in WoS (which I just won on a Space Victory btw.)